Interview with Olivier Corvez, our new Executive Director, on the future of Smart Freight Centre and the road ahead
Amsterdam, 14 September 2021 – Smart Freight Centre (SFC) together with Cefic, the European Chemical Industry Council, release updated guidelines, taking further steps towards reducing the environmental impact of freight transportation in the chemical sector.
Smart Freight Centre (SFC) in partnership with Cefic have today published updated guidelines as Module 5 of the Global Logistics Emissions Council (GLEC) Framework. The guidance, Calculating GHG transport and logistics emissions for the European Chemical Industry, aims to support this sector to gain insights into the GHG emissions that result from the transport of goods in their supply chains, both inbound to their production plants and outbound to their customers. This knowledge is key to tackling the decarbonization challenge, enabling the chemical industry to take further steps to reduce its impact.
These guidelines reflect changes that have occurred in the past decade since Cefic and ECTA launched their first such guide in 2011, meaning future calculation outputs will be based on the latest state of the art methods. Use of the guidelines will provide an opportunity for the industry to respond to increasing pressure from investors, legislation, and customers to reduce emissions from freight transport activities.
“With transport being classed as a difficult challenge when it comes to reducing GHG emissions, it is important that companies come together to take action. The fact that this guidance is produced by Cefic and backed by ECTA demonstrates a willingness to reduce transport emissions that can only be achieved by the European chemical industry if these two groups work in cooperation.”
Alan Lewis
Technical Director, Smart Freight Centre
“Measuring is managing! This guidance supports the chemical industry to evaluate and manage the emission impact of its transport choices, taking into account the characteristics of the chemical sector. It will be the basis to start discussions and collaboration with our logistics service providers. Ultimately, we expect harmonized and energy-based emission measuring and reporting from all logistics service providers.”
Joost Naessens
Director Transport & Logistics, Cefic
Cefic has also issued a new version of SQAS questionnaires, to better assess logistics service provider emission management performance from January 2022.
